Afghan official says attorney general sacked over secret Taliban meeting

Afghan President Hamid Karzai talks during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron at the Presidential Palace in Kabul June 29, 2013.
REUTERS/Massoud Hossaini/Pool

KABUL Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sacked his attorney general after the chief law officer held an unsanctioned meeting with Taliban peace negotiators in the United Arab Emirates, a senior Afghan official and a legislator told Reuters on Monday.

Attorney General Muhammad Isaaq Aloko met members of a Taliban peace negotiation team in Dubai despite being told by the Presidential Palace not to attend the meeting, the official said.

"He was instructed not to go," said the official, who declined to be identified.

A prominent member of parliament also said Aloko had been sacked.

But an official in Aloko's office denied that his boss had been dismissed, saying he was at the Presidential Palace "celebrating Independence Day" on Monday.

Peace talks between the Karzai administration and the Taliban are seen as crucial to averting another round of war as Afghanistan's NATO-led force prepares to end its military mission by the end of next year.

Talks with the Taliban began in 2010 but they have been marked by a series of missteps, delays and allegations of plotting and interference.

The senior Afghan official said some senior cabinet members were trying to persuade Karzai to reverse his decision to dismiss Aloko.

The meeting in Dubai was in the first week of August and involved other prominent Afghans including members of the government's High Peace Council, which Karzai set up in 2010 to pursue talks with the Taliban.

Aloko had been Karzai's attorney general since 2008.

Karzai will travel to Pakistan on August 26-28 in an attempt to patch up ties and breathe life into the stalled Afghan peace process.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel)

Next In World News

MANAMA Britain's exit from the European Union will mean it can forge free trade deals with Gulf Arab allies, foreign secretary Boris Johnson said on Friday in a speech also heralding closer defence ties to the conservative monarchies.

ACCRA Opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo won Ghana's national election, becoming president elect at the third attempt and cementing the country's reputation as a standard bearer of democracy in a region that has been blighted by civil wars and coups.

Trending Stories

Sponsored Topics

Reuters is the news and media division of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Learn more about Thomson Reuters products: